Posts Tagged ‘2012’

As some would like to get you excited about anyway. Lately, the History Channel has been apparently trying to boost ratings by getting people excited about the end of the world coming shortly. In 2012, to be precise, and Dec. 21, 2012 to be even more precise. Of course, the world was already supposed to have ended in 1914, 1936, 1945, 1952, 1969, 1981, 1982, 1988, 1992, 1994, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, among other dates, including as early as 247. In 2013, we’ll likely be able to add 2012 to this list of failed dates.

So, why? Any google search will tell you that this particular date is the date that the Mayan calendar ends. In fact, as the above link shows, it seems likely that the Mayans had some notion of an age of enlightenment beginning with that new cycle. See here for more on the Mayan calendar end. Their calendars appear to be inspired from spiritual cycles, but based on the motions of Venus and possibly other planets. They were quite good at naked eye observational astronomy, great at making accurate seasonal predictions (useful for growing crops) based on those observations, and fantastic architects. They also seemed to think that blood letting is effective method to keep harmony in the universe and the gods happy to ensure good crops. So maybe in any case, the ancient Mayans are not the go-to guys for a useful model about how the universe works. There is still much to learn about the universe, of course, but nothing in astronomy, plate tectonics, or anything else suggests that an ultimate calamity is set to occur during 2012.

From what little I’ve seen on the programs on the History Channel, they don’t seem to be taking this more sober approach though. In fact, in their advertisements, they proclaim that many of the great prophets such as Nostradamus all point to a coming doomsday in 2012. In fact, I can’t find anywhere where Nostradamus makes a prediction specifically for 2012. The closest I’ve found is this famous quatrain:

The year 1999, seventh month,
From the sky will come a great King of Terror:
To bring back to life the great King of the Mongols,
Before and after Mars to reign by good luck.

Well, that’s clear. Let’s see, what happened July 1999? Ah, the Liberty Bell 7 from the Mercury program was lifted out of the Atlantic ocean. Man, Nostradamus was spot on after all! Oh wait, he said “Mars”, not “Mercury”. Must have been a typo. But 2012? Huh? Oh, I get it. Nostradamus was talking about Jupiter and the collision of comet Shoemaker-Levy. The five comet fragment that slammed into Jupiter. After all, Jupiter is the “King” of the planets, and to any Jovians living on the gas giant, those comet fragments must have seemed like a terror in the sky. But that was from 1994, five years off from 1999. Perhaps there was some perturbation Nostradamus forgot to calculate, or maybe five years is symbolic? Plus his quatrain would make the comet the king. Oh well, I’m sure somebody can think of some way to make it fit and it will be wonderfully poetic and symbolic.

Now I’m sure in 2012, somebody will find something that will twist some vaguely worded quatrain or prophecy to seem like that’s what was meant. One of the token skeptics on the History Channel said that these so-called prophets shoot a lot of arrows and later people draw targets around them to make it look like that’s where the arrow was meant to go. Shoot enough arrows and people will find ways to draw targets around them. I couldn’t say it better myself.

Of course, no mention of famous doomsday prophets is complete without Edgar Cayce. Someday I’ll have to do a full write up on this guy. The History Channel again seems to link up Cayce with 2012. So far, I’ve found no mention that Cayce predicted anything specifically for 2012. But that would seem to be irrelevant anyway. One of the major gifts he was supposed to have was psychic healing and diagnosis. In fact, there is no reliable evidence this ever worked. He seemed to rely on old homemade remedies and homeopaths and the like. What Cayce fans point to as evidence in favor of his psychic diagnoses is, in fact a scatter shot of arrows towards which they could point at one of the arrows in a diagnosis to claim victory. According to what I saw on the History Channel, he opened up a psychic hospital to perpetuate his fraud, er. self-delusions, er, cures. If his method was so successful, we would have expected this to have become a booming medical center. In fact, it went broke (albeit in a really bad economy), a fact one would think would have been “forseen”. For James Randi’s write up on Cayce, see here.

For another great take, and a rare agreement from me for this site, check out God and Science for another perspective on all the 2012 hoopla. For a taste:

The 2012 disasters are such good violence and mayhem that they would make the ultimate disaster movie. Hey, somebody needs to make a lot of money…

Well said.

So, in short, when the big bad asteroid comes to destroy the earth, the prophets and seers will not be the ones to tell you about it. It will be the astronomers, with telescopes pointed at the sky and scribbling down orbital mechanics calculations. Unless, of course, one of the prophets also happens to be one of the afore-mentioned astronomers.